UFC Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz says Jon Jones is mentally weak

Tito Ortiz said Jon Jones essentially threw him under the bus in a recent interview.

“I looked at it as he’s just a weak guy,” Ortiz told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “There’s a lot of minds stronger than that. It shows how he can just fold.

“Mentally, if he gets pressed and pressed during interviews, and all of a sudden he just totally turns himself around, you can’t be like that, man.”

Jones told MMAFighting.com that he was hurt when UFC President Dana White compared him to Ortiz when discussing the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of UFC 151, which came after he turned down a short-notice fight with Chael Sonnen and the promotion elected to scrap the entire card.

That disappointed Ortiz, who said he stood up for the light-heavyweight champ when fans trashed him for turning down the fight.

“You can’t be like that,” he said. “You’ve got to stand for the things you believe in.”

Ortiz knows about sticking up for himself. The ex-UFC champ fought several battles outside of the cage with UFC management and was repeatedly characterized as a problem child by UFC President Dana White, who himself used to manage Ortiz.

Ortiz, however, believes those battles served an important purpose: Not only did they put more money in his pocket, but the pockets of those following in his footsteps, as well.

“You’ve got to understand: I was doing my own management work,” he said. “I was the guy putting my life on the life on the line and getting the surgeries. I wanted to bring the level up, and I brought the level up.

“For him to say the things he said about me, I’m just like, ‘Dude, I had your back.’ I was just really disappointed.”

Still, as a newly minted manager, Ortiz, who recently started his own firm with partner George Prajin, can now see both sides of the equation when it comes to dust-ups between promoter and fighter.

The now-retired fighter said if he was managing Jones, he would have requested a meeting with White when Vitor Belfort was proposed as opponent at UFC 152, which takes place Sept. 22 in Toronto.

“If it was my guy, I would want to help the company out,” Ortiz said. “I think it would be something that I would sit down and talk to Dana about to make the right decision for the company, and I think the fighter would have to understand that. I made those same decisions myself where I fought.”

Jones, as it turned out, decided to fight Belfort after Lyoto Machida turned down an already-announced rematch with the champ.

“I’ve got to make a decision about my fighter’s future,” Ortiz said. “He’s going to be the best guy in the world. The guy who he’s going to fight, is it going to better his career? Is it going to better him as an individual? And I would say against Chael, it wasn’t a fight to take. Chael just lost his last fight. It’s a lose-lose situation. He steps up, he fights (and) he beats him – he was supposed to beat him. As a manager, you’ve got to make those decisions.”

The fighter in Ortiz disagrees with Jones’ decision to turn down Sonnen.

“My ego gets in the way, and I know I can crush everyone, and it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I’m like, ‘I’ve already put in camp for the last nine weeks. I want to fight. I don’t care.’ I’ve had that situation time and time again with my career. Maybe not championship fights, but time and time again over my career.”

And Ortiz said there were plenty of times where necessity simply was the driving force of his career. He cited fights with Vladimir Matyushenko at UFC 33 and Forrest Griffin at UFC 106 as two examples where he was injured and fought opponents on short notice. (Ortiz won the first bout to defend his belt and lost the latter.)

“I had to support my family, man,” Ortiz said. “That’s what it really comes down to. It’s not about the titles. That’s what this business is about. This is about money. I don’t care how you wish-wash it, that’s what it’s about. When you’re young and you’re 22, 23, or 24, yeah, it’s strictly about fighting. But as you get older and you realize there’s no other business you’re going to go into, then you’ve got to treat it like a business and make the right decisions for your career.

“Maybe that was the right decision for Jon Jones’ career. Would I have done the same? No.”

As the UFC 189 tour made its last stop in Dublin, featherweight champ Jose Aldo was met with a torrent of abuse from the Irish fans. It might have been unpleasant, but it might also have been just what he needed.